By Dan Ambrose: WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KOs) has the perfect plan-B backup plan if his proposed opponent Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) gets a little too greedy and asks for too much money or other things in their negotiations for their May 2nd fight.
Cotto can always agree to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr in a rematch that would likely bring in huge pay-per-view numbers on Showtime.
“Mayweather team has been in touch [with Cotto],” said Dan Rafael during his Friday Chat on ESPN.com.
Canelo is looking to bump Mayweather off of his May 2nd date in 2015 because Canelo says that’s a Mexican date due to it falling on Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican holiday. Since the fight would be taking place in the United States and sold to American boxing fans on HBO, Mayweather is just as eligible to fight on that date as Canelo. However, unless Mayweather gets a big name like Manny Pacquiao or Cotto, he’s not going to be able to bump Canelo off the May 2nd date.
I’m sure it would burn the red-haired Canelo up if Mayweather were to take his opponent Cotto for the May 2nd date, which is why Cotto is in the perfect position to get pretty much whatever he asks for from the 24-year-old Canelo for the May 2nd date. If Canelo wants Cotto, he’s going to need to give him whatever cut or venue he asks for, because if he doesn’t then Cotto can always agree to face Mayweather.
The only way Canelo can compete with that fight is if he agreed to fight someone dangerous like Gennady Golovkin, and I doubt that Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya would greenlight a fight like that for Canelo before he gets the Cotto fight. At some point De La Hoya would say yes to a fight between Canelo and Golovkin, but definitely not before Canelo faces Cotto in the future. Until that fight happens, we’re likely to see Canelo facing weaker opposition that stand little chance of beating him.
A Mayweather-Cotto fight would likely do bigger numbers than a fight between Cotto and Canelo. Mayweather is a much bigger star than Canelo in the United States, and there are a lot of casual boxing fans who would love to see a rematch between them. Mayweather had a lot of problems with Cotto in their fight in 2012.
Mayweather would have a chance at winning his 6th division world title if he faces Cotto at middleweight. That would be a big deal for Mayweather, because he hasn’t made it a point to try and collect divisional world titles like Pacquiao did in moving up from division to division. It would be a meaningful fight because Mayweather likely wouldn’t ask for a catch-weight handicap in facing Cotto.
Mayweather would probably let Cotto fight at the full weight for the middleweight division because he wouldn’t want to cheapen his win over him by having him come in below the full weight. That’s something you got to like about Mayweather. He doesn’t want his opponents to below their best weight.
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